How interaction experience enhances customer engagement in smart speaker devices? The moderation of gendered voice and product smartness

Purpose: With the advancements of Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years, smart objects (SOs) have been widely applied in the lives of consumers to fulfill a variety of functions. This research aims to explore the new interaction experience between consumers and a smart speaker that can create the effect of customer engagement by enhancing the gendered voice and product smartness. Design/methodology/approach: This study conducted a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject experiment to validate the research model and the hypotheses. Findings: The results indicate that a high level of interaction experience between the users and smart speaker devices increases customer engagement. Smart speaker devices that present female voices have a high product smartness, whereas high levels of interaction experience are more effective in customer engagement. Furthermore, the results also show a moderate effect of gendered voice and product smartness between the interaction experience levels and customer engagement. Originality/value: This study contributes to the assemblage theory and the interaction experience levels between users and smart speaker devices in IoT. Based on the results, suggestions on enhancing the smartness ability and application services of new smart speaker devices are proposed. The findings of this study can promote a more continuous interaction between users and smart speakers.